So on the one side we have the Buy Your Own Device* (BYOD) trend and on the other side we have stuff bought with public funds. Guess what - people will bring their own Macs, iPads etc and thus are exempted from the EPEAT rule - and the city saves money. Win-win? Well, except for the environment, but hey ...
(*) I refuse to call it Bring your own device. This trend really is about moving investments from the company to the work force. It's effectively workers paying fro their job - and that is so wrong ...
So on the one side we have the Buy Your Own Device* (BYOD) trend and on the other side we have stuff bought with public funds. Guess what - people will bring their own Macs, iPads etc and thus are exempted from the EPEAT rule - and the city saves money. Win-win? Well, except for the environment, but hey ...
(*) I refuse to call it Bring your own device. This trend really is about moving investments from the company to the work force. It's effectively workers paying fro their job - and that is so wrong ...
I hope this makes people reconsider if they really need a new laptop, iphone, etc. I think a lot of people would pay twice as much for their devices if they could guarantee the workers weren't being exploited.
You are, and there are plenty of devices for you. This idea that because one or two device lines (surface, macbook) do something means that it is an assault on you (the collective) is tiresome. The great thing about capitalism is that you vote with every purchase. People want these, those people aren't you (the writer).
What am I supposed to do as the consumer. Am I to not buy new electronics at all in protest? If 10,000 of us were to do this do you think the drop in revenue would be attributed to dissatisfaction with the working conditions instead of underperformance in sales and marketing?
If there was a way for me to paypal $20 to the employees myself on top of a new iPhone there could but its not something that consumers have much control over and I am skeptical that just using outdated devices addresses the situation
Maybe they should stop selling devices then and only lease them.
When I BUY a device I should have access to all the schematics, all of the components, etc. otherwise I do not OWN it, I am simply borrowing it
I fail to see why electronics should hold a special place that other manufactured goods do not, for example we disallowed car manufactures from locking down the cars we own and they used the EXACT same excuses that modern electronics manufacturers do
Now we are starting to see modern car companies, like Tesla, want to bring back those Anti-Consumer policies to the automotive world
I am sadden that soo many people want to BUY a product but still have the manufacture get complete control over it. That is not ownership, that is serfdom
Why are you defending having less ownership over devices that you own? It’s like your employer wants to give you a salary increase but you complain and say you don’t want more money.
I wish we did a better job facing this fact as adults. This is the Achilles heel of Capitalism and ignoring it or making excuses only hurts us all. I love Apple hardware, I love Android, but I also love Capitalism and having choice. Living under this economic system requires responsibility to regulate these things.
It's an interesting argument, because you're saying it's fine that we're forced to have one of these devices, and that we're expected to carry it everywhere, or face being excluded from many aspects of society. For some things I can accept it (parking is a grey area to me personally since I don't actually know how to drive), but for e.g. person-to-person payments, I find the current situation untenable.
This reminds me of how all the city e-scooters are treated. Those rented by people with apps are treated terribly and thrown around like trash by their operators. Those actually owned by people are treated very well. At it's core it's basically a strong argument in support of private property (at least in this instance).
I would love it if you could solve this sort of social issue, but I wouldn't underestimate the difficulty of doing so. Successfully making people feel responsible for shared tools is almost equivalent to "building a better society". It's a worthy goal, but people have been trying to do so for basically all of human history.
This works for certain things, like email and such - but it only works for very tech-savvy people, not the general consumer, and it stops working at a certain scale: One of the examples from the article is about car manufacturers (who also employ big tech like business methods). Good luck engineering your own car.
Similarly, while I could pay 2-3 times more for a Fairphone or such, it'd be better if tech independence was available to everyone, including for consumer-grade smartphones.
On a related note, I think devices such as Fairphone and Framework laptops prove that even without regulation, "free" (as in freedom) products are already more expensive, you don't need regulations to make that happen.
Which is why I choose not to buy an iPhone or an iPad. When someone complains about an inadequacy of a product and you replay that they should buy something else, you are missing the point. The ability to buy a real car, does not make an iCar useful.
Many, many people live in areas where they could get away with using public transit only, most of them still own cars because sometimes they still need or want them. Only I can know whether I need to drive on gravel roads, and even I won't know whether I will need to in the future.
If I think Flash is a nuisance, (and I do) I am free to avoid it. But I don't want Steve Jobs or any company making such decisions for me. Jobs is free to sell his phones with whatever policy he wants, and I'm free to think that he sucks for it.
(*) I refuse to call it Bring your own device. This trend really is about moving investments from the company to the work force. It's effectively workers paying fro their job - and that is so wrong ...
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